Insights & Analysis
Freeze Before Order, Hearing Before Extension: Patna High Court Reads GST Attachment Jurisprudence Into Section 110(5) of the Customs Act
A division bench of the Patna High Court quashed provisional attachments of a digital-marketing company's bank accounts where the department could not show a written, Commissioner-approved order preceding the freeze, and set aside extension orders passed without any hearing before the six-month period expired. Treating Section 110(5) of the Customs Act and Section 83 of the GST Act as in pari materia, the Court imported the Supreme Court's Radha Krishan Industries construction of the GST provision wholesale into the customs context, while also rebuking the department for attempting to cure the defect through a fresh order passed while the writ petition was pending.
14 min readOne Tax Period, One Notice: Bombay High Court's Nagpur Bench Reaffirms That a Section 74 GST Notice Cannot Club Multiple Financial Years, Pending a Larger Bench Reference
A show cause notice covering financial years 2019-20 to 2021-22, alleging suppression of taxable value, was quashed because the CGST Act ties assessment and its five-year limitation to each financial year separately. The Bombay High Court held itself bound by its own precedent over a contrary Delhi High Court view — even after the Supreme Court declined to interfere with that view — but preserved the Revenue's liberty to revive the case if a pending Larger Bench reference goes the other way.
13 min readBombay High Court: A 'Caretaker Agreement' Calling Itself a Tenancy Is Still a Licence
Ending a three-decade dispute over a Vashi APMC market shop, the Bombay High Court has reaffirmed that the decisive test for a lease is transfer of the right to enjoy property with exclusive possession — not the presence of the word 'rent' or even a literal but internally inconsistent recital of tenancy.
13 min readSupreme Court: A Claim of Religious Dedication and a Claim of Adverse Possession Cannot Both Stand
Dismissing an appeal by a Dera's legal representatives, the Supreme Court has held that a party cannot simultaneously claim that land was dedicated to it and that it separately perfected title by adverse possession, and that decades of revenue entries recording rent-free religious possession do not, without more, establish either.
13 min readDepartmental Knowledge Defeats the Extended Period: Calcutta High Court Quashes a Central Excise Demand Founded on the Assessee's Own Cost Audit Report
Hindalco Industries faced a Central Excise demand of Rs. 6,29,920 built entirely on its own Cost Audit Report, three years after departmental officers had personally witnessed the very stock shortages now called suppression. The Calcutta High Court held the extended period of limitation unavailable: what the proviso to Section 11A requires is a deliberate act of concealment by the assessee, not the mere absence of departmental knowledge, and a demand cannot simultaneously rest on a statutory record and be founded on its suppression.
13 min readOrder-in-Appeal Is Binding Until Reversed: Telangana High Court Quashes a GST Refund Rejection Founded on a Department's Mere Decision to Appeal
A GST refund of Rs. 19.33 crore, consequential to an appellate order that had already set aside the underlying demand, was rejected because the Department had internally decided the appellate order was 'not legal and proper' and intended to challenge it before the GST Appellate Tribunal — an appeal it had not yet even filed. The Telangana High Court held that an Order-in-Appeal remains binding under Section 107(16) of the CGST Act until actually stayed, modified or set aside, and that a refund can be withheld pending further proceedings only through the specific mechanism of Section 54(11), not by administrative fiat.
13 min readSupreme Court Holds NOIDA Cannot Deny 'Zero Period' Relief Over an Access Road It Never Built
Dismissing NOIDA's appeal, the Supreme Court has held that a public authority's own policy for excusing stalled construction cannot be read as strictly as a statute, and that a developer left without the frontage its lease deed promised is entitled to relief regardless of whether some other, inferior access existed.
13 min readSupreme Court Fixes the Cut-Off Date for Solatium in National Highway Land Acquisitions
Deciding a long-running dispute over which compensation regime governs highway land acquisitions, the Supreme Court has held that the reference date is the Competent Authority's own determination of compensation under the National Highways Act, 1956 — not the date the acquisition proceedings began, and not a later arbitral award on a disputed quantum.
13 min readNo Duty, No Section 28 Jurisdiction: CESTAT Chennai's Toyota Kirloskar Ruling on Sensor Classification and the Limits of Customs Reassessment
A CESTAT Chennai final order on customs classification of automotive sensors doubles as a ruling on the outer limits of Section 28 of the Customs Act — holding that a completed, nil-duty self-assessment cannot be reopened under Section 28 at all, and that no interest attaches to differential IGST for periods before the Customs Tariff Act's borrowing provision was amended to include interest.
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